Can You Be You and Still Together?
Aug 21, 2025
What does equal power in relationships look like?
There’s a theme I’ve been sitting with for many years: the theme around equal power in a relationship.
How can we be fully ourselves, not giving our power away, not giving our desires up, and be in a relationship?
Thus far, I have either chosen men who are more powerful or less powerful than me. After some time, I didn’t feel interested in the guys who were less powerful. In fact, I felt repulsed.
The men who were more powerful than me however put me down, often to the degree of abuse. In past relationships, there was no way I could let my wings fly.
What does it require from a modern man to not feel small or afraid when his women walks her own path, and thus doesn’t feel the need to put her down, control her or hold her back?
How can I follow my soul calling without needing to push the man by my side away because I am afraid he might take something away from me?
How can two powerful people nourish each other’s roots, and give space for the branches to rise high into the sky?
Being equally powerful and supporting each other, making sacrifices for the other, and committing to lifting each other up sounds beautiful in theory.
In fact, I believe this is the leading edge of what we are evolving into in the future of relationships.
But my lived reality of this dream hasn't been so beautiful.
It has been messy.
The painful side of polyamory
When my partner and I first got together and our love was still young and fresh, only 6 weeks old, I went to Finland for a Temple Training. This is a six week long container that was one of the hardest trainings I have ever done. Part mystery school, part sexual empowerment and shadow work, part soul-initiation.
Part of that training meant being emotionally and sexually intimate with others.
Most men would have told me to fuck off.
And maybe that’s what I would have needed to hear - or what Chris would have needed to say.
But at the time, not going wasn’t an option.
I had already spent years giving up careers and parts of myself for relationships. I knew this time I needed to stay true to my soul, even if it risked losing everything.
The training was necessary for me, and it was elemental in the emergence of what’s yet to come.
But the pain it created in our relationship was immense.
He felt betrayed, misled, and abandoned.
I felt judged and shamed for following what felt like my deepest truth.
Those wounds stayed with us for years.
And for a long time, they hurt every day.
Countless ceremonies and forgiveness rituals followed. But these old wounds kept re-emerging in many fights.
I see this in many of my client stories - old resentments that don't go away and cause new pain again and again.
The shadows I didn’t want to see
For a long time, I couldn’t see Chris as strong or courageous.
I saw him as weak, as someone who didn’t take responsibility for his trauma, who projected it onto me.
But here’s what I didn’t want to see: my own self-righteousness.
I gave myself permission to explore intimacy with others because it happened in another country, in a “held” container.
But when he sought experiences closer to home, in our shared bed, with people he knew—I couldn’t bear it.
Was it different?
Yes.
But was I also unjust, clinging to double standards?
Yes.
Why we hold on to old wounds
We hold onto old wounds because our protectors are trying to keep us safe. That’s why some wounds never heal - it simply doesn’t feel safe enough to let go.
It’s scary to depend on each other especially after you have been hurt badly. Ultimately we do this when we open our hearts,
Better to keep each other at arm’s length.
Better to never fully surrender again.
Because I might abandon my partner again for my soul’s path.
And he might keep me from shining in my fullness.
We have played out this original wound a hundred times.
It’s the age-old wound between men and women.
The patriarchy that says women must be contained, controlled, judged if they dare to live their freedom.
And the shadow of superiority many women carry—believing, secretly, that we are “better” than men.
I am still researching down here in the swamp, what is really true.
And what the protectors need to feel safe enough to let go a little bit more.
What I’m learning now
This isn’t just about us.
It’s about the collective.
The part of me that still suppresses her voice, her soul, her sexuality—she isn’t afraid of my partner. She’s afraid of being controlled. She’s afraid of being shamed. She is afraid of being trapped (and burnt or stoned or whatever else happened to sexually empowered women in the past).
And the part of him that struggles to trust—he isn’t really afraid of me. He’s afraid of abandonment, of not being enough, of being inadequate or a failure.
For men and women to be free together, we would need to risk something radical:
- That she can shine, stand in her fullness and doesn’t need to mother him along the way or fight with his protectors
- That he can grow in his self-worth without it being a threat to women, and that he feels loved, valued and celebrated for his gifts
- That we can let go of our grip on old wounds, and build trust in the present
That we can meet as equals in power and potential so that we can co-create together.
And maybe this is the real question
How do we learn to love in freedom—not possession?
How do we let each other grow, without holding each other back?
I don’t have all the answers. But I know this:
The more we dare to let go of old wounds, the more space there is to co-create something new.
💌 Reflection for you:
What’s one old wound you’re still carrying in your relationship (whether this is with a past or current partner)
And what is more important to you than letting this wound go?
With deep love and devotion,
Bibi Gratzer
Sacred Sex and Relationship Coach
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